“Gungor still sees a desire for ritual and for communal gathering. He recognizes the power of the collective — and aims to write non-dogmatic music for corporate, if not religious, worship.” - Seattle Times (AP)
“The 32 paid choristers, represented by the American Guild of Musical Artists, have not received a pay raise in years and their wages have yet to be restored to pre-pandemic levels.” The Symphony wants an 80 percent budget cut - just to the chorus. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
Really, it’s a musical installation, with speakers set up as far from each other as possible in a living room. “The idea is to encourage 'an increased awareness of one’s presence in space — architectural, communal and individual.’” - Washington Post
Fishman “was sitting in a restaurant in Adams Morgan one night in 2003 with his wife, attorney Stephanie Richards, when they grabbed a napkin and pen to outline his vision for a jazz festival in the nation’s capital.” - Washington Post (MSN)
He did it without Chabon, for starters: while the author happily gave rights to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, opera is simply "not his thing." So Bates and librettist Gene Scheer set about adapting the Pulitzer-winning novel — and the result will open the Met's season next fall. - AP
It's called Nintendo Music — and on it, you can listen to dozens of hours of music from games like Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong. The app has had more than a million downloads since it launched on Oct. 30. - NPR
The 41-year-old Italian maestro, currently principal conductor at the Opéra national de Lyon in France, will conduct at least two Met productions per season, starting in 2025-26. He will be only the third principal guest conductor in the company's 141-year history, - AP
The 45-year-old Englishman enjoys a substantial social media following; he’s a fan of multidisciplinary performances combining music with other art forms; he’s passionately devoted to developing new audiences through music education, outdoor concerts and community initiatives. - CultureOC
New York–based media giant Condé Nast, which owns Pitchfork Media, the longtime online music criticism website, broke the news on Instagram Monday that the festival would no longer take place in Chicago, where it originated 19 years ago. Condé Nast did not explain the decision. - WBEZ
For decades she has been one of America's leading singers of avant-garde classical music, premiering dozens of pieces by composers from Elliott Carter to Oliver Knussen. But, until recently, she's worked almost entirely on the concert stage. Now she has opera composers writing roles for her. - The New York Times
AI gets so close to replicating Travis’s voice that it has, in a sense, brought him back as a full recording artist. The music industry’s reaction to AI is like that of many other industries: impressive new friend or creativity-destroying foe? In Travis’s case, it provided a glimmer of hope. - Variety (MSN)
"They got in touch with its foundation and creditors, and built a new board. ... The newly-formed team of directors and musicians spent months trying to find a way to resuscitate the southern Ontario symphony. And in October, they pulled it off." - The Globe and Mail (Canada)
The renovation and expansion of the venue will take four years longer than originally planned, and the cost, originally projected at under €1 billion, will soar and could double. Critics of the project are now calling for alternatives, saying that even a new building would be less expensive. - Pizzicato
